X01: MY PERFECTLY ABNORMAL LIFE

MIDNIGHT

X01: MY PERFECTLY ABNORMAL LIFE

The Manufacturing Center was nothing like the bright Training Zone. It was dark, cold, and humming low — rows of dead artifacts on conveyor belts, half-built blades, cracked rings, all waiting to be melted down.

Xyan stood alone under a flickering light, his small katana at his hip, glasses fogged from the cold.

"I’m here," he said quietly. "So... who is M?"

Clank.

A shadow dropped from the pipes above.

It wasn’t a teacher. It wasn’t Kitarah.

It was a boy about his age, in a mechanic’s jumpsuit covered in oil, with wild black hair and goggles pushed up on his forehead. He held no artifact — just a wrench.

"You actually came, No-Talent," the boy grinned.

"You sent the note?" Xyan frowned. "You saw the forest?"

"I see everything that glitches. Name’s Milo. I fix the drones you broke."

Xyan’s stomach dropped. "I didn't break—"

"You dropped a battery on a Mark-II sensor eye. That’s my drone. I watched the replay frame-by-frame." Milo tossed him a small chip. "Everyone else saw 'terrain malfunction.' I saw footwork. You moved like you knew where the blind spots were."

Xyan pushed his glasses up to hide his eyes. "I got lucky."

"No." Milo leaned in, voice low. "Lucky doesn't climb a tree without making noise. Lucky doesn't time a drop to cause friendly-fire. And lucky definitely doesn't get 8% in Phantom Linguistics on purpose."

Xyan froze. "What?"

Milo pulled out Xyan’s test. Every answer was wrong in the exact same way — wrong enough to fail, but too consistent to be stupid.

"You bombed it perfectly," Milo whispered. "You’re not dumb. You’re hiding."

Silence. The machines hummed.

Xyan’s hand drifted to his katana. "I just don't need unnecessary attention. What do you want?"

Milo smiled, but it wasn’t mean like Gaiz or Theo. It was excited.

"I want to show you something."

He led Xyan deep into the Center, past the legal furnaces, to a sealed door marked PHANTOM DOMAIN — AUTHORIZED ONLY.

Milo pressed his palm. The door opened.

Inside was a graveyard of black artifacts. Not blue like the students'. Black. Cracked. Whispering.

"This is where they dump artifacts that refuse to bond," Milo said. "They call it Phantom Domain because the power in here doesn’t follow their sync system."

He pointed to the center.

A massive, shattered katana floated in a containment field, pulsing faintly black and blue.

"It reacted when you walked in," Milo whispered.

Xyan’s own small katana — the chipped, dead one at his waist — suddenly grew warm.

For the first time in years, it hummed.

Xyan stepped back, terrified. "No. No, turn it off. I’m supposed to stay dark!"

Milo stared at him. "Stay dark? Bro, you’re not dark. You’re—"

The lights died.

A voice echoed from the black katana in the center:

"Cross... heir... finally..."

Xyan’s glasses cracked.

---

Less than an inch...

Milo led Xyan past the legal furnaces to the sealed door: PHANTOM DOMAIN — AUTHORIZED PERSONNELS ONLY.

Inside was cold. Rows of dead artifacts — blackened blades, cracked rings — all dumped because they "refused to bond."

In the center, floating in a containment field, was a massive shattered katana. Its edge was broken, but at its hilt sat a small black gem, pulsing faintly.

As soon as Xyan stepped in, his own small, chipped katana at his waist grew warm.

Hum.

The black gem on the shattered blade cracked — a thin thread of dark-blue light shot out and slammed into the tiny, dull gem on Xyan's katana hilt.

Xyan stumbled back. "What—!"

The light didn't stop. It kept flowing, thread by thread, until the giant katana crumbled to dust. All that was left was its empty hilt — which twisted, shrank, and reformed in mid-air into a simple black cord necklace with a dark stone.

Clink.

It fell to the floor in front of Xyan.

Milo stared, mouth open. "It... chose you. It didn't even—"

Xyan didn't pick it up. He stared at his own katana. The little gem on its hilt was no longer dull. It now had a faint, deep blue spark inside it. Quiet. Hidden.

He took a slow breath, pushed his cracked glasses up, and looked Milo dead in the eye. His voice was low and serious — not the stuttering loser from class.

"I'm actually thinking you've got the wrong person for this. So, I'll act like we never had this convo... just... just stay away from me."

He turned to leave.

Milo called after him, not laughing now: "You can keep hiding, but you can't run from it forever."

Xyan didn't stop. He left the necklace on the floor.

---

Next Morning — Main Hall

Every student gathered as the final Qualifier results dropped from the sky in colored envelopes.

Headmaster Harrington's voice boomed:

"QUALIFIER ARC — FINAL RESULTS!"

A giant screen lit up:

ECHELONS vs CELESTOIDS — TEAM TOTALS

WINNER: THE ECHELONS

The Echelon side erupted. Gaiz screamed, Theo tackled Sen. Kitarah just crossed her arms, Golden envelope in hand.

The screen scrolled the highlights — not just power, but the important stuff they tracked for future pairing:

MOST IMPORTANT RECORDS:

- Top Power Flex: Kitarah — 82% (Echelon)

- Top Sync Rate:Sen — 88% (Echelon)

- Favorite Food Logged: Onix — Spicy meat buns (Echelon)

- Most Read Book in Dorms:Phantom Tactics Vol. 3 — Sen (Echelon)

- Lowest Score — Power Flex:Xyan Cross — 2% (Echelon)

- Lowest Score — Linguistics: Xyan Cross — 8%, F (Echelon)

- Teamwork Note:Celestoid girl (Mira) — Saved by terrain malfunction

Xyan stood at the very back, his envelope Green. He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide that his katana's gem was faintly warm.

Stay dark, he thought. Let them win. Let them shine.

But in his pocket, he could feel the weight of something he hadn't meant to pick up —

The black cord necklace.

He'd grabbed it without thinking.

Xyan didn't sleep.

He sat on his dorm bunk at 2 AM, lights off, roommate Theo snoring above him, and stared at the two things on his blanket:

1. His small, chipped katana. The gem on its hilt — once dull gray — now had a slow, deep-blue pulse inside it. Like a heartbeat.

2. The black cord necklace. Cold. Heavy. Just a stone.

He'd told himself he left it on the floor. His pocket said otherwise.

Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid.

He wrapped the katana in a shirt and shoved it under his mattress. The pulse glowed faintly through the fabric.

"Stop that," he whispered.

The pulse didn't stop. It got faster when he was nervous.

Worse — since the Manufacturing Center, he could feel things. When Theo rolled over in his sleep, Xyan felt the tiny shift in air. When a drone passed outside the window, he felt its hum in his teeth before he heard it.

He pressed his palms to his eyes behind his glasses. No. Stay dark. Stay 2%.

---

Morning — Dorm Inspection

"Random artifact check!" The dorm supervisor banged on doors.

Xyan panicked. He yanked the katana out, tried to rub the gem clean like that would help. The blue spark was still there, faint but visible.

Milo's voice echoed in his head: _You can't run from it forever._

"Think, think—" Xyan grabbed a black marker from his desk and colored over the gem.

It worked. Dull gray again. Perfectly dead-looking.

The supervisor scanned his katana. The device beeped:

XYAN CROSS — ARTIFACT: DORMANT. POWER FLEX: 2%.

"Still trash," the supervisor muttered and moved on.

Xyan exhaled so hard his glasses fogged.

He looked down at the necklace. He couldn't marker that. He tied it tight and tucked it under his shirt. It sat cold against his chest.

Just don't let it show. Just act normal. Fail like normal.

---

Lunch — Echelon Table

The Echelons were still celebrating their win.

Gaiz was shoving food in his mouth. "Did you see the board? TOP SYNC — Sen! TOP POWER — Kitarah! We swept!"

Onix, seated nonchalantly, nodded. "And Sen's been reading Phantom Tactics Vol. 3 like a nerd for weeks. That's why he's top."

Sen just quietly ate, his silver staff leaning against the table, his book tucked under his arm.

Kitarah wasn't eating. She was watching Xyan from across the hall.

He was sitting alone at the end of the Echelon table, picking at plain rice, his katana's gem now marker-black, his collar pulled high to hide the necklace cord.

He caught her looking and immediately knocked his tray over.

Rice everywhere. Everyone laughed.

"2% and can't even hold a tray!" Theo cackled.

Xyan scrambled on the floor, slightly red faced, glasses slipping. "S-sorry!"

Good, he thought as he wiped rice off his uniform. Let her think I'm just a clown.

Please.

But under the table, his katana hummed once — very softly — and the marker on the gem cracked.

A tiny sliver of blue peeked through.

Xyan clamped his hand over the hilt so hard his knuckles went white.

Stay dark. Please, stay dark.

Above his head, no drone noticed. No stat changed.

But Kitarah narrowed her eyes. She hadn't seen the gem.

She'd seen his hand move.

Too fast. Too precise. For a loser who just spilled rice.